Should Obama Expect a Gift from China on Iran?

When President Obama meets Hu Jintao, his Chinese counterpart, on Tuesday, Obama will be carrying an awkward agenda. The relationship between the U.S. and China is fundamentally stronger than it has been in years, with the glaring exception of China’s opposition to tougher sanctions on Iran. And therein lies Obama’s challenge: How can he persuade the Chinese leadership that Iran is more than just a sideline issue in the U.S.-China relationship? Is China going to give him anything that he can bring back to Washington to show critics that treating China like a responsible partner pays dividends?

I posed some of these questions to Shi Yinhong, who has been tracking the relationship between China and the United States for a quarter century. He is the director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University, in Beijing. Some of our exchange follows.

What do Chinese leaders make of Obama so far?

From the beginning of his Administration, as the leader of a superpower, he has said that China is important to the world’s politics and economy. Also, I think it’s very important that, up to now, he has not made too much of trade disputes, which differs from previous Administrations—even from that of China’s good friend George W. Bush. Obama has been attacked by some forces in the United States, but up to now he has not paid too much attention to China’s human rights issues. And that is important for Chinese leaders. And I think the leaders are satisfied that Obama generally takes a friendly attitude in discussions, and he expects China to play much more of a role in global issues, and he is more willing to accept that China still remains somewhat conservative. He is prudent when someone asks him to criticize China, and I think the Chinese leaders can feel that they have never received this kind of treatment from an American President.

So, if he is giving them what they want out of the relationship, will they consider that he might have a point when it comes to Iran?

Iran is a difficult problem. If we fixate on Iran, then we can’t expect Sino-U.S. relations will be very good. China is reluctant to go further than it has already gone. China sympathizes with American worries, but Iran, to China, is a very important country in the Middle East. China has interests, and it has a little different understanding of the situation, and I personally think that China will not do much more to meet American expectations.

That sounds like China and the United States are not going to share much more than goodwill on this trip. Will China go further than that?

Sometimes expectations can have a gap, but both sides are used to this. I don’t think that President Obama will say, “If China does not agree, then I will be angry about everything else.” The Chinese are used to this, too; on some issues they will go a long way to meet Americans, but on some issues they will stay in the same place.

China has made it clear that it doesn’t want a nuclear Iran, so why doesn’t it move closer to the U.S. position?

Although the United States feels a sense of urgency, the situation is still not such that you have to give an answer tomorrow. So the United States will still tolerate—if that’s the word—China’s relatively conservative attitude. The United States will continue to push it, and China will continue to make some justification for some not-so-proactive policies on this issue. But I don’t think this issue will spoil Sino-U.S. relations.

Is there anything the United States could do to change that position?

Up to now, I’m sorry to say, I can’t see very much that it could do. This is serious for the United States, and so, in that sense, it is also serious for China. And so the two sides will keep agreeing to disagree. And they will wait for a future situation, and if Iran gets much more dangerous, then China will escalate its efforts.

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